XFX eyes Alpha Male status

Pre-overclocked Alpha Dog Edition card targets hardcore gamers

PC graphics specialist XFX has unleashed a pre-overclocked GeForce 8800 GT card, known as the ‘Alpha Dog Edition', as part of its continuing effort to position itself as the hardcore gamer's graphics brand of choice.

The card features a unique heatsink/fan design, which enables the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) to run at a frequency of 625MHz. (nVidia's reference specification calls for the 8800 GT GPU to run at 600MHz.)

XFX also says this unique thermal design allows the card to run eight-degrees Celsius cooler than competing cards. The card also features a single-slot design and offers full DirectX 10 support, which includes Shader Model 4.0 compatibility. Games such as the recently released Crysis take advantage of this when run on Windows Vista.

The GeForce 8800 GT is nVidia's latest mid-range GPU for gamers and cards based on this GPU compete against AMD's recently launched Radeon HD 3870.

Besides the Alpha Dog Edition, XFX is also now shipping two other GeForce 8800 GT card variants known as the ‘XT' and ‘XXX Edition'. XXX Edition cards are the flagship products of each XFX card series and boast higher pre-overclocked core and memory frequencies than standard versions. Middle East gamers can expect these cards to appear on store shelves within two week.